`Deadly` fungal infection research paves way for cure

July 25, 2016, 1:03 PM IST

Doctor Li Tongqiang's equipment lies on a table in his medical clinic in the village of Jianhua, located on the outskirts of the northern Chinese city of Shuangcheng in Heilongjiang province March 29, 2011. Li is one of 800 'country' doctors that care for around 600,000 mostly farmers and their families who live in the rural areas surrounding the city of Shuangcheng. Li's annual salary is around 25,000 Yuan (US$3,900), and he sees around 15-20 patients per day, visiting homes of patients if they are unable to visit his clinic. China is in the midst of overhauling the biggest healthcare infrastructure in human history and in the past month, has pledged more money to bring more people under its insurance scheme, raise the levels of reimbursements, and improve services to meet the needs of a 1.33 billion population. Picture taken March 29, 2011. REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA - Tags: HEALTH SOCIETY)

Washington: They may be generally viewed as annoyances, but it turns out, fungal infections can be life threatening.

Some experts estimate that tens of thousands of patients die every year from these infections. Now, a new study at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) has provided new insights into one of these microbes, the Mucorales fungi, which can cause fatal infections.

The researchers delineated several key aspects of the fungus that might help researchers develop treatments. Right now, there is no way to treat these fungal infections. For example, all of the mucormycosis-causing fungi tested contained several copies of a gene known to be involved in host invasion.

“I think this work is going to provide a significant resource for future fungal research,” said lead co-author Vincent Bruno. “Now we can dig into the data to find new targets for treatment.”

There are between 50 and 100 species of the Mucorales fungus. The team compared the genes of 25 of these. The study identified several pathways that are required for mucormycosis to develop in a patient.

Patients whose immune systems are not working properly are especially at risk. This group includes patients with diabetes, people who have recently undergone transplants or who have suffered wounds. In addition to soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fungal infections also appeared in some patients hurt in the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and the tornadoes that occurred in Joplin, Missouri, in 2011.

These infections are considered to be rare, but Bruno noted that they are probably often overlooked and underreported, and so may be much more common than previously realized.

“There are no vaccines or effective therapies available today to halt the highly fatal mucormycosis infection,” said other lead author Ashraf S. Ibrahim. “There is an urgent need for additional research to develop strategies to protect patients with weakened immune systems.”

The researchers said that they have identified a pathway that has the potential to be targeted to treat these infections. It appears that these fungi are less able to invade human cells after the inhibition of a protein called platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PGDFR), which plays a key role in cell growth.